spin

more, bigger thisaway

mati's and jennifer's opening, spin, was so fun. their work looked great together, and i enjoyed the playful board game-related theme and their interpretations of the theme.

it makes me smile to look at these photos of cuties mati, hugh, katrina and david.

it was a treat to meet jen hewett for the first time last night too. she contributed a beautiful screen print to From Orchards, Fields, and Gardens. also a treat to find From OFG front and center on the book display at rare device, thanks to lisa c.

jar and cup

my friend sarah and i traded art. now her beautiful jar and cup hangs on my wall. it's even yummier in person. her paintings remind me a little of thiebaud in that i just want to eat them.

flickr faves this week are from some contributors to my book! (thank you all for your purchases!)
under the apple tree by mistubako
3d version of anna emilia laitinen's houses
9 july by shari altman

outstanding in the parking lot

bigger, more over here

this weekend jen and i picked berries and jammed. after about eight hours of making and preserving 17 pints of strawberry + blackberry jam yesterday, jen and bob's neighbors brought out the barbecue for an outstanding in the parking lot dinner, the city version of outstanding in the field. jayn set up her wind-up gramophone! and we watched the full moon rise over the warehouse building across the street. pretty sweet. we also discussed important matters like pig orgasms, which according to our resident pig orgasm expert, leah, (and then google for verification) last 30 minutes. we topped the evening off with vanilla ice cream served the freshest berry syrup on top. YUM. an all around delicious weekend.

norwegian film

whenever i go to lost weekend video, i always check out the scandinavian section. i am obligated to. usually, it's the same shelf all the time: babette's feast, show me love, together, italian for beginners, my life as a dog and a few more. but last time, there was a new addition to the shelf, a 2003 norwegian movie: kitchen stories. it looked like it would be a bad comedy. turned out to be a very sweet, quiet, interesting and a little sad film. it was mostly in swedish, as one of the two main characters is swedish. and much of it is silent, so i didn't actually end up reading any subtitles. i recommend it. i'm not going to tell you what it's about, aside from that it's about a friendship that develops between two men.

above are poor photos of the movie (on my tv). these awesome swedish camper trailers play an important role in the movie. so cute and round.

they're here!

i've updated the book site a bit with some new images from the book. the pre-order price is available until friday at midnight. starting saturday, the books will be $30.

my house smells like bindery glue. 20 boxes are stacked high. 3 empties, plus stray shipping envelopes litter the floor. the place is a mess. woohooo!

memory

pages from a proof

even though from orchards, fields, and gardens is filled with the writing and artwork of others, it feels so personal to me. not surprising i guess considering i've spent almost a year with its stories and images.

you know how you appreciate certain photos or paintings often because they evoke a certain feeling or memory? well, most of the artwork in the book is like that for me. when i first saw abby's photo, i was immediately drawn to and moved by it. i didn't realize until later—until even after i'd chosen it for the book from a group of abby's farm photos—just how closely it resembled a painting that is very familiar to me. the story—

after college, my friend laurel and i eurailed around europe before laurel left for northern spain and then college on the east coast and i left on a train north to go live in sweden. (our dramatic parting is another story altogether, involving multiple barcelona underground stations with the same name, losing each other, bomb threats at the train station, canceled trains to the basque region and phone calls from my fretful mother to the paris central train station, my hardly recognizable name announced over the loudspeaker several times in a thick french accent, just as my train for stockholm was arriving.)

laurel and i traveled around for a month, staying in hostels and rigorously seeing sites and attending museums, surviving on baguettes, fruit and hit cookies. toward the end of the trip, we traveled to cupra marritima, on the east coast of italy, where my mormor's brother torsten had a house. he was there for the summer, and my mormor and her sister, carin, were visiting him there for the first time, as luck would have it. we stayed with them for three days, the first physically relaxing days of our trip. we swam in warm, clear turquoise water and ambled up the beach strip to get our daily gelatos. in the evenings, we all ate on the roof of torsten's house. mormor, carin and torsten reminisced about their childhood. i wish i had a recording of their conversations. i don't remember a word of what they said, but i remember how close they seemed and how they basked in each other's company. i had never really seen my mormor as someone's sibling until then. i knew she and carin were close, but hearing the three of them, i got a different sense of their relationships.


mormor, carin and torsten


carin, laurel and mormor

anyhow, during that stay, torsten (an artist) painted in his front yard. he painted a blue ladder and the fig tree behind the ladder. the ladder stayed in place all day and night, there when laurel and i arrived, and there when we left. later, that painting graced the cover of a book from a retrospective exhibit of torsten's work. i often return to that book with the ladder on the cover. funny that i did not consciously recognize it when i first saw abby's photo.


bigger

beautiful bounty

bigger yonder

some weeks the csa box is more impressive than others. this is one of those weeks. (even pinky leon is impressed—basil sniffing kitty). all of the sudden the colors changed. deep purple grapes and figs and green green peppers. i'm not even a pepper fan, and these look good to me. they look like they are especially crisp, don't they? i had been refraining from buying the hyper expensive figs at rainbow grocery, but they were wearing me down looking so plump and soft and ready to burst. pretty sure i gasped when i opened the box this evening and saw all the figs. just what i wanted. YUM. feeling grateful and lucky.

right now i am reading eaarth (that's with two as for a reason), by bill mckibben. the first half of the book is all about how we cause(d) climate change and about the tragic consequences that change is having across the planet. it's eye opening to read about the crazy many small and large ways climate change is affecting the earth and just how badly we are screwing ourselves. parasite and insect booms, forests dying, species dying, tropics expanding, tundra thawing/releasing bursts of methane, drought, storms. mckibben writes about how we are altering large and important (for earth's climate and for our survival) natural features of the earth (the ocean, the rain forest, the ice caps) so extremely and in mostly irreversible ways! people who like doomsday stories, this might be a book for you. luckily, there's a second half to the book. i'm just getting to that part, but so far it's intriguing and oddly optimistic, given the frightening first half. i'll report back when i'm done with the book. (did you know reagan removed the solar panels from the white house when he became pres? it's almost comical.)

in other news

i've also updated my website. it needs a bigger overhaul, but for now, there are some new design projects added to the graphic design section. a fun one is the centaur-fold. you can read the story on that page, or you can skip the story and just watch the unfolding/see the centaur sail away (in flash).

here's the post about the centaur-fold evening, when my cousin karin and her peter (very, very soon to be married—speaking of news!) visited san francisco.

flickrs
i love rosa's fabric
cakes
wish i was here

Finally, the big news!

I'm happy to announce that From Orchards, Fields, and Gardens: Art and rememberings celebrating sustainable agriculture and good food will be back from the printer mid-August! Until then, you can pre-order the book and get $4 off of the regular price.

The book features writing from 11 authors, and photos and illustrations from 21 artists. The authors remember activities, people, and places that shape(d) their appreciation for small scale food production and processing.

Find out more about the book.

I've been working on this thing for ten months. I often feel that I lack faith that things will work out ok, and this lack of faith makes me not take risks. I worry. And I envy people who believe there's a greater, loving force out there. They must feel more secure. Making this book has tested my (non-religious) faith. But I think it has also generated faith, because each step in the process yielded positive responses. Two friends encouraged me from the start. People I asked to contribute to the book agreed to do so—amazing! When I suggested edits, people didn't seem to think I was a meanie! When I asked (via snail mail because he doesn't do computers) Wendell Berry if one of the contributors could include stanzas from one of Berry's poems, he promptly wrote back, and he agreed! When I asked a long ago ex for help with a final edit, she agreed! When I asked for printer recommendations (after not feeling confident about the one I'd planned on using), a friend sent me to a helpful, flexible, fair, green, family-run press. This project has forced me to ask for help and to let go/not put so much pressure on myself when I can't meet deadlines. I still feel quite nervous about the final product (wondering if I made good design choices, etc.), but I'm also very excited and grateful. Thank you book contributors and friends!

goats

my friend's neighbor has goats. they're the cutest of course. i love how they flick their tails and ears. the tips of the goats are constantly in motion. and their baaas, each with a unique timbre. ridiculously cute.

warm colors

my friend brought this sweet zippered guy back from argentina. i love the colors and the pattern.

pinky leon

next week i should have some news to share here (if anyone is still reading my sporadically updated blog)....

a leaf for a leaf

this is my first, beautiful mati mcdonough original painting! now, where to hang it....

mati and i traded—my leaf for her how to identify trees painting. this painting has been in the back of my mind ever since i first saw it in her little pink houses show, one year ago.

i'm still on a blogging break, more or less. today less.

flickr favorites of late
fuschia
waiting (makes me long for sweden in the summer)
weekend kitchen
Lu (cat pretending to be a bird)

reading

sneaking a post in here. i just finished uncertain peril, a book by claire hope cummings about genetic engineering, the privatization of public institutions and the politicization of science. so interesting and important and thorough and, in many instances, shocking. i wanted to dog ear every page, but restrained myself since i had the book from the library.

cummings is a journalist, and she grounds the chapters of her book in specific places, like berkeley, hawai'i, abu ghraib, norway, vietnam, iowa, mexico. she gives the reader scientific, historical and political information, while telling fascinating stories. and, i don't want to tell too much, but storytelling, it turns out, is vital to our being able to deal with and transform the environmental mess we are in. stories and myths shape how we think.

i just read the first page of another book i checked out, diet for a hot planet, and it seems like it's going to be a continuation along similar themes. anna lappé opens the book by quoting environmental philosopher susan griffin:

Like artistic and literary movements, social movements are driven by imagination...Every important social movement reconfigures the world in the imagination. What was obscure comes forward, lies are revealed, memory shaken, new delineations drawn over the old maps: It is from this new way of seeing the present that hope emerges for the future...Let us begin to imagine the worlds we would like to inhabit, the long lives we will share, and the many futures in our hands.

these words about stories, art, social movements and the imagination encourage me.

hi

i think i may be away from here another month.

some flickr faves for now
can't
from eva morell
mending
nights to walk and pedal
wander

reading the excellent wisdom of the last farmer by david mas masumoto right now. thank goodness peach season is here because this book makes a person crave peaches big time (and cry btw).

see you in june

my camera has officially passed. i think i'll take a blog break until june while i work on my book project.

i am researching publishers right now for the book i've been compiling/designing. one of the publishers writes in their submission guidelines that when indicating one's target audience, one should not refer to "cultural creatives." they write: This mythical group is referenced in nearly one-third of the proposals we get, and carries no weight with us. this cracked me up.

yesterday i was craving waffles. and breakfasts in general. probably because i was looking at these.

while i was looking at breakfast photos and craving waffles (and eggs and toast and smoothies and cheese and and and), i listened to an npr concert by low and loney dear, two of my faves. these older loney dear songs are new to me. (download concert on bottom left)

one of my favorites from the cca mfa exhibit: mara baldwin

well, this has been a totally scattered post to break with. ah well. i leave you with these cuties: and smile please.

see you. (maybe it's time to transform the blog too....)

may

and very soon a new camera.

information graphics on
who owns organic foods
who owns seeds

totally fascinating and frightening and useful info. though could use some design help from say this guy (nicholas felton, master of gorgeous info graphics)

sunny sunday

photos from our fun opening
thanks to those of you who came!

quiet camera obscura today

cleaned my flat and lazed in the sunbeams (not with the cat, because once the vacuum comes out, PL stays under the covers for the rest of the day)

come over tonight

if you're in the bay area, come to our spring opening tonight from 6–9

project sprout gallery
900 tennessee st., #16 (at 20th st.)
san francisco, ca

jen explores botanical lore and medicinal folk tales about dogpatch plants in her pieces.
i am showing sewn leaves (a playful look at the many shapes nature takes) and botanical watercolors.

hope to see you there!

one last

sneak peek. and then i'll post about something else!

in the meadow

photo by bob lake

these are the necklaces jen and i collaborated on. i like how they turned out—thanks jen!

different views/purchase here.

jen's other artist-of-the-month necklaces here.

some more

spring blossoms

spring

blossoms from two different trees. (casually snipped.)

heart-shaped leaf. it curls too.

(a sneak peek of this.)

❀

flickry spring
from heather
also from heather
no. 2 | a few days after
no. 3 | that windowsill
heads up
like so many clouds
forsythia

this shouting across the divide this american life episode aired again yesterday. the first part is about an american muslim family that gets discriminated against and abused after 9.11. the worst of the family's troubles occurs a year after 9.11, when a hateful book is distributed to fourth grade classes throughout the family's school district. the fourth grade teacher at this family's child's school allows (and fuels) the students' cruelty toward their muslim classmate. a powerful, sad and angering story. the teacher should have been fired in my opinion. and it's shameful that none of the other families in the district complained about this book or about the hateful environment that was being fostered in the schools.

on a curling paper

nasturtiums. another.



jason munn is one of my favorite graphic designers. had to get his fantastic book of music posters when i saw it at rare device the other day.

a few of my favorites

saturday treats

jen and i delivered some of our show opening announcements around town saturday. we went to prairie collective (pictured above) for the first time. the shop is lovely.




midway through passing out cards, we were forced (by our sweet teeth) to stop by tartine. i almost want to eat the cakes and pastries for their stunning good looks alone. luckily they taste even better than they look.

fashion, sustainable and un

the other evening at art murmur, we stumbled upon a show of work by permacouture artists. i loved it. such thoughtful work that clearly requires a lot of process and craft. dying, weaving, sewing.

(i dyed yarn once in the cutting cold in sjövik, sweden. our class collected various plants from the area {i was on blueberry leaf collection duty} and spent all day outside dying yarn. in the end, we each had a wheel of yarn in so many colors, little tags dangling from each yarn swatch telling which leaf, berry, flower in nature lent its color to that swatch. it was a long and very cold day, but satisfying in the end to see the rainbow of natural colors.)

above is (a not good photo of) part of one of sasha duerr's woven dresses. so pretty. she is the founder of the permacouture institute. she also co-created a dinner to dye for, a slow fashion/slow food event.

and in what must be very unsustainable fashion, here are some photos from valentino and chanel books.





the valentino book is beautiful with great photos. his dresses are luscious sculptures. look at (fuzzy) young brooke shields.

bear with a view

this california bear looks out over the bay. well, the bay is over bear's right shoulder.

this is some of the view from the place where my friend was pet sitting. the place with mini. the house has an almost 360 degree view of the bay. from the front deck, the house overlooks sausalito, tiburon and angel island. one can see downtown sf, the bay bridge and the richmond bridge. from the back/side of the house one can see the golden gate and the point bonita lighthouse and the marin headlands. it's incredible! and so peaceful with all that water surrounding. so much blue passing through every shade.

the house perches atop the ridge across the highway from sausalito proper. and it really feels like a perch. like a birdhouse. i slept in a bed high up off of the floor. going to sleep i felt like i was on the tip of a triangle on top of another triangle on top of another triangle (the bed in the house on the hill). i am a bit afraid of heights, so the sensation was not entirely pleasant. i could almost feel myself swaying out over the ocean. tipping. but i gave in to the idea of falling and slept so soundly.


(since my camera is really on its last pink leg, the view photos don't do the view justice. the sky wasn't pink at all. both days it was blue, blue, blue. tried to adjust the photos in photoshop, but the pink is just too much.)

emporio rulli aka decadence

fika in larkspur

emporio rulli is an italian cafe, gelateria and wine shop with an old timey italian feel. there in the kitchen they make candy, tarts, gelato and many italian pastries. (the pastries were definitely better than the cookies.) the chocolate pastry above had a raspberry paste inside. so good! mmm m.
oh and the coffee is delicious too.